Year abroad part 2

The last installment finished at the point where I sent in the online application, so here is another update on my exciting Erasmus experience!

February 25th – Having spent the last month wondering when I’d hear more about Erasmus, I sent an (anxious) email to the study abroad office asking if my place is still confirmed.

February 26th – Got an email back, saying that I still have my place, and the email should have come through a month ago! It also included a list of the stages of Erasmus application, but I’m not sure which one I’m on (some are quite similar) so I will email again and ask.

March 1st – According to the study abroad office, I need to wait for the host university to send me their official application, so it seems that I still don’t actually have a definite place. Not going to lie, I’m really worried now, because if I don’t end up going, I will have nowhere to live in Birmingham next academic year, as all my friends have found houses. There are options in this situation (frantically posting on Facebook to see if anyone has any spare rooms, or applying for halls again), but obviously I don’t want to have to do either of these.

March 15th – I have an email from Université Paul Valéry! It’s in French, which isn’t surprising, but I was kind of hoping it would be in English…

I have only skim-read it as yet, but the gist I got was that the ‘application’ is just admin, so I just need to send in some forms. Basically it looks like it isn’t a test, unlike UCAS applications. They also sent a link to their accommodation website, which was another thing I was concerned about, as it wasn’t clear whether I would get any help with this.

I need to read through the email and forms in more detail, but things seem to be looking up! Part three will probably be quite intense, as there will be forms galore, and student finance applications on top of this as well… oh and exam/recital prep and final projects due at the same time as all the forms. Don’t worry, university is fun really…